Tailless Aircraft Design Textbook Recommendations

[forward_velocity]

Hi all,

I'm a structural engineer joining an aeronautical design project. I would like to familiarize myself with the analysis of aerodynamics and controls for tailless aircraft, and would appreciate your help choosing a textbook.

The ideal book would be a near-comprehensive toolkit for analytically modelling the lift distribution and constituent drag components such as induced drag, form drag, skin friction drag, etc. It would consider factors specific to tailless aircraft, such as stability through sweep and reflex airfoils.

One of the project objectives is to arrive at an aerodynamic/structural design using closed-form solutions, and reserve finite element methods for validation. Therefore, the more complete and relevant the book, the better I can partake in this process.

All recommendations are welcome. Thank you!

 

[berkshire]

One book to start with is Nurflugel by the Horten brothers. It covers the pre war experiments on tailess aircraft done by them in Germany. The book is in German, with some English translations by Jan Scott and others.

https://www.cumulus-soaring.com/books/Nurflugel/Nurflugel.htm

B.E.

You are judged not by what you know, but by what you can do.

 

[rb1957]

have your tried a google search ? there seemed to be relevant hits from obvious searches.

please do your homework first.

another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?

 

[forward_velocity]

have your tried a google search ? there seemed to be relevant hits from obvious searches.

please do your homework first.

There is no need to be rude. I performed a preliminary search and found only history books and research papers. The closest thing to a textbook was Tailless Aircraft in Theory & Practice by Karl Nickel & Michael Wohlfahrt. To my disappointment, reviews indicate it is light on theory. I am in search of a comprehensive no-nonsense engineering textbook.

Would you mind sharing your relevant hits, and whether or not you have read them?

 

[rb1957]

that was one that looked interesting.

apologies for being blunt, but often people don't do the easy stuff (asking questions here is easiest !), so telling us what you've done helps us understand where you're at.

I don't know how much "text-book" guidance you'll find on this esoteric topic. Maybe try searching "flying wing design" ?

another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?

 

[berkshire]

Forward Velocity,
Contact Did you look at the works of Fauvel ?

http://www.nurflugel.com/Nurflugel/Fauvel/e_index.htm

I do not think you are going to find a " Text Book" Per.Se. You should also look at the reflex airfoils John Roncz produced for flying wings. Some of the pages in this site are in French, However a machine translation will get you the Gist of it if you do not speak french.

B.E.

You are judged not by what you know, but by what you can do.

 

[forward_velocity]

Thank you berkshire, I have considered both books you suggested (and others) and have concluded that the best approach will be a hybrid one. I will start with a general aerospace textbook that covers universal considerations (ie lift distributions, dihedral, washout, aeroelastic behavior, etc) followed by a one (or all) of the above tailless-specifics books. This will lead to the final optimizations (ie pitching moments, control surface placement, etc).

This is a long term project, so I have to start somewhere. Thank you!

 

[Sparweb]

I found some (old) reports on the subject of taillesss aircraft:

DENT, M.M., CURTIS, M.F., A method of estimating the effect of flaps on pitching moment and lift on tailless aircraft, RAE Report No. Aero 1861, 1943.
(this reference was found in ESDU 98017)

It should go without saying that NACA and NASA studied the subject to death. 774 hits on the search terms "tailless aircraft"

You haven't mentioned if you intend to put people inside your aircraft, but adding this anyway:
CAR 523, APPENDIX A, Simplified Design Load Criteria
Consider taking advantage of the "simplified design criteria" still available to light aircraft designers in Canada, which the FAA has recently deleted from FAR 23.

I don't have a copy handy tonight, but I think you should investigate Jan Roskam's series of books "Preliminary Sizing of Aircraft". I can't remember specifically because I read them a long time ago, but I think it is HIGHLY likely that you would find some tailless aircraft design tips in there, if not detailed examples.

STF

 

[WKTaylor]

forward_velocity... one thing I learned years ago was that web search terminology can make/break a search.

In addition to the term 'tailless aircraft' search for 'flying wing' and 'delta wing' aircraft design. I'm sure there are other term variations to try but I'm 'mentally challenged at this time'.

WHY...?
Searching for tech data on 'oil-canning' [of skins, webs, etc] drove me crazy... until I learned that the formal-term for this phenomena was 'snap-through buckling'... then I became informed.

BTW... does 'tailless' in Your sense, mean that there are NO horizontal and NO vertical stabilizers... and/or NO winglets? RE: B-2?

Regards, Wil Taylor

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